


"I Can't Do This Anymore"

by Curreeus



Category: A Way Out (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curreeus/pseuds/Curreeus
Summary: Fictober prompt 19 - "I Can't Do This Anymore"A chase and a firefight later, and Vincent's on a rooftop in the rain, stumbling towards the only gun in sight on the other side of the rooftop without knowing what he’s going to do with it once he gets there.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28
Collections: A Way Out Fictober 2020





	"I Can't Do This Anymore"

**Author's Note:**

> Ergh this one got me whoops  
> I was absolutely prepared to have it done and then I wasn't, so now it's 6 days late - I'm not particularly pleased with it (that ending, woof), but also I don't have time to make it better, so up it goes and onto day 26, which continues on from this and actually has a more satisfying ending I promise...

Vincent doesn’t know why he thought this would go any other way.

He knows Leo well enough by now that he should know that there was no way he was going down without a fight, the man was a firework just waiting for an ignition most of the time, and another betrayal was bound to send him skyhigh.

But there they were.

A chase and a firefight later, and he’s on a rooftop in the rain, stumbling towards the only gun in sight on the other side of the rooftop without knowing what he’s going to do with it once he gets there.

Shoot it, he supposes. But in all honesty he just wants to stop Leo from getting it.

Cold steel meets his grasping fingers, and as he whirls around to face Leo, who’s accepted his fate and is kneeling defiantly on one knee, everything slows down and Vincent feels like he can see every single raindrop taking years to fall.

He aims the gun. And he keeps aiming. His finger twitches on the trigger, but it won’t move.

_ Just pull it, _ he thinks.  _ Pull it and it’ll all be over. _

But he doesn’t.

Leo stares at him, breathing heavily from the likely cracked ribs and deep bruising Vincent has given him, and he waits.

And still Vincent doesn’t shoot.

No matter how long and how hard he wills his finger to pull the trigger and end it… he can’t.

There’s too much between them now - it feels almost like the bullet would just get caught and pulled to a stop on all the words and glances and gestures they’ve made, on everything they haven’t said.

Vincent’s teeth grit and his muscles tense and Leo just keeps waiting for a shot that isn’t coming, breath labouring in and out of his bruised ribs, and Vincent looks at him and he realises that he can’t do it.

That this whole thing - he can’t do it anymore.

It had started as a job, but the truth was that in his grief over losing Gary, being with Leo had been the only salve on that wound.

Leo’s smiles and terrible jokes and childlike pranks and stalwart belief in him. They’d healed something in him that work and an ever growing chasm in his marriage had not, even with the promise of a child on the way.

Shooting Leo would kill part of him too.

And so Vincent stops thinking, and for the first time in a very long time, he trusts his gut instead.

With a roaring scream that tears at his throat and his lungs and sends everything out of him in a deafening rush, he turns and hurls the gun off the side of the building, so far away that they can’t hear the clatter of it landing through the rain.

Then he turns to Leo, panting like he’s run a mile, frustrated rage rolling off him in waves.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore!”

He staggers to his feet, stumbling over to Leo - who remains frozen still in shock at the sudden left turn this seems to have taken - and grabs his arms, hauling him to his feet.

There’s a moment where they just stare at each other, inches apart, before Vincent grits his teeth and shoves Leo back.

“Get out of here, Leo, run - if you’re smart about it you’ll be fine, just go!”

Leo recovers quickly, favouring his left side and readying himself for another round of fighting, but Vincent staggers back instead of forwards towards him, and he looks confused. This seems to have put a wrench into the cogs of his righteous anger, because his voice has mellowed considerably when he responds, quiet and confused.

“....what?”

Vincent growls again and throws an arm out at Leo as though he’s shooing away an annoying bird, not a man that he’s risking his career for.

His career doesn’t matter. He’s risked his life for Leo over and over again and that meant so much more than a desk with his name on it.

“I’m letting you go. Maybe I’m stupid or maybe I’m just realising how badly I’ve fucked up, but… you need to get out of here or they’ll find you, now just... Go!”

His voice echoes with finality around the concrete of the roof, and Leo finally takes the hint. With a few steps backwards, making sure Vincent isn’t going to pull out an unexpected handgun and take potshots at his back, he gives Vincent a final nod and disappears into the darkness and the rain.

Vincent watches him until he can’t see his silhouette, and listens until his footsteps fade into the pouring rain.

He’s gone.

Vincent collapses like a straw house in the wind, his knees finding the concrete with a dull thud and his head bowing in defeat.

He tries to convince himself it was the only thing he could have done - and really, the more he thinks about it, the more he  _ logically _ knows that’s true.

But his heart aches and his body hurts and his mind races and he sits there, rain pelting him relentlessly, until Emily comes to find him what seems like centuries later.

She asks him what happened and he can’t answer. The rest of the force arrives and he coughs out something pathetic because he knows he needs to.

He says that Leo got away; that he jumped off the roof like a madman and ran, and Vincent couldn’t catch him.

He knows that they don’t believe him, and he can’t even bring himself to care.

He finds that he doesn’t care about an awful lot right now.

In the days and weeks that follow, Vincent goes about his life feeling as hollow as the ceramic figures Carol keeps on their mantlepiece.

He does his paperwork and makes his reports and goes to his meetings and comes home and talks to Carol about her day; takes care of Julie and smiles at her when she starts to open her eyes more and look around.

But inside he’s empty and dead.

If things go the way he’d hoped, Vincent will never see Leo again.

He’s trying to convince himself he’s ok with that.


End file.
